Traveler
by underworldriverguide
Summary: A DnD backstory. A young girl travels with her uncle to protect her unhatched cousin. Homebrew (Mythology).
1. Prologue

Prologue

The village was burning.

Everything was burning. I watched as Uncle grabbed his newly laid egg. Auntie already left to fight. Yelling and screaming were heard outside, but I needed to block that out. Uncle and Auntie wanted to get their child out, and I agreed to help.

"You ready, Shalong?"

I nodded and as I pinched some dirt off the ground, I placed my hand on his back and focused my energy. As I felt more power rush through my legs, the two of us ran towards the woods.

**Authors Note:**

**For those who are unfortunate enough to stumble across this and have no idea what the heck is going on, I'm a Dungeon Master for a crew of interesting fellows, and due to a recent introduction of some NPCs with backstories that intertwine, I offered to tell them the story. This is the beginning of that mad child of an idea. I'm not much of a writer, but I do DM, so I guess that's something? So this story is dedicated to the Stars of Greece, my wonderfully crazy DnD party. I hope I don't regret this.**


	2. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

The woods were dark and cold.

I could barely see in front of me and if it wasn't for the sound of Uncle's breathing and his silhouette contrasted against the dark forest, I would've probably lost him. Luckily, the poor vision was also to our advantage: the enemy would also struggle to find us in this cover if they tried. I kept silent as I followed him. He was cradling the egg in one arm, hidden underneath his cloak, and was walking as fast as he could without making too much noise.

When Auntie was still pregnant with the egg, she received news from a messenger that a group of rogue white dragonborns wanted to attack our village. As the matriarch of the village she wouldn't leave her post. Despite that, she didn't want to risk her future child. They had it all planned, the rouges weren't supposed to reach the village for another two weeks, and by that time the egg should be laid and Uncle could run off towards the coastal city of Guangzhou and hide there until things blew over.

This plan started to fall apart as soon as an army of dragonborns arrived.

Turns out, the messenger gave us the wrong note. The attack was not a lie, but the size was greatly underestimated; and they also moved faster than expected. With the two week estimation, since Auntie was pretty much due, Uncle could've dashed out of the area with an extra two days to cover his tracks. The army arrived little more than a week later. How no one noticed a large army marching down the countryside, I have no clue, but needless to say, we were cut on time.

I agreed to help two days before the army arrived. By then, everyone knew that we were in trouble. My mom was in charge of protecting those who could not fight. She planned to hide in the mountainside with her charges. When she heard that Uncle needed help, she came to talk to me.

"It'll be safer for the three of you if you go with them. Uncle knows what he's doing."

Uncle and Auntie are important figures in our village. Auntie being a formidable fighter, and Uncle with his stories and songs he sang, while being a beautiful speaker. Together, they took charge of managing all the issues in our village.

Since Uncle wasn't much of a fighter and they had just laid the only egg in the whole village, everyone was concerned about the safety of the egg. Everyone had something to say about the safety of the egg.

"You three should go to the capital."

"I have some blue dragonborn cousins in the fishing village over the mountain and next to the river, you three should hide there."

"I know a mountain range that even demons are afraid to go near, you should hide there."

"Take this flower with you; it'll bring you good luck."

"You should come and hide with us." This came from my baby cousin. She tugged at my skirt. "Older sister, why do you have to go?"

I knelt down. "Older sister is going to help protect our new little brother. Uncle and I want to make sure that nothing bad happens to it before it hatches."

She frowned. "But Auntie will protect us."

"Auntie will protect you, but little brother's egg is much less resilient than you. You guys are going to a very safe place, but isn't the best for egg incubation. Uncle and I are hoping to make it to a place that we can get a steady flame going for our little brother to hatch."

"Really?" She hesitated.

"Yes, and after Big Auntie beats up the bad guys, I'll be back with Uncle and our new baby cousin." I patted her head.

She smiled at this and nodded. A group of children came running by laughing playing tag, and she ran off to join them.

My mom left a day early with the escapees. Dad stayed behind to fight. The night that Auntie laid her egg, Dad and I exchanged our goodbyes.

"Do you have everything?" He asked as I hoisted my bag on my shoulders.

"Yes, I prepared with everything. I'm bringing the stone too."

The stone, a smooth egg-shaped rock with a band across the middle, was a gift from my parents after I had learned my first spell. It was an heirloom of sorts, a conductor of magic, and was the same stone I turned in my hands as I took first watch in the woods as Uncle slept. He was huddled around the egg and breathing softly. It was still dark; the few things I could see were barely illuminated by the new moon in the sky. I looked up, praying to the Queen of Heavens that we would stay safe.

**Authors Note: **

**And that's that! For a bit of context, this is a homebrew campaign that I run with a group of my friends. It's a sort of ancient history + mythology + fantasy + Dungeon and Dragons. So dragonborns and dragons are mainly from the continent of Asia. Humans still exist. I just sprinkled in a whole lot of mythology. **


	3. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

We traveled for a few days. After the first night in the woods, it seemed that no one was following us, thus we took the main road. Uncle Guo muttered a few words and transformed into a regular humanoid figure. If he stayed in his dragon form, people would notice. I didn't need to do much, a large cloak draped around most of my armor, I was good to go.

Uncle is related to me on my mother's side. My father is a human, and my mother is a dragon; I inherited most of my father's human features, besides some more peculiar scale patches dotted here and there. This was why I didn't need much for a disguise, not that we were pretending to be someone else, we just needed to be inconspicuous.

When we reached Guangzhou, Uncle received a message from Auntie.

_They know. Leave as soon as possible. The White Warlord came._

Uncle looked at me.

"I'm going to be boarding the first boat out, do you want to come with me, or go home?"

"What happened?"

"Auntie thinks that they might also try to hunt us down, it'll be safer if we got out of the country. Somehow they learned that we have the egg on our hands."

"Then I'll stay with you."

"Okay, I'll let Auntie know then."

He looked around and headed off to the piers with me following close behind. After asking around, there was only one ship leaving port for the rest of the day. All the other ships either already left or was fishing boats that didn't travel far. This ship was headed off to the North, but with the small fare of one copper a person for the trip, we immediately boarded the ship.

The ship was a trading ship, bringing foreign goods from the West up North. Normally it would take us three weeks' worth of travel, but with Uncle's magic, also known as some peculiarly fortunate winds throughout the whole journey, the time was cut almost in half. This was nice, as I get seasick quite easily. I prefer the sturdiness of the mountains, and the ever shifting center of gravity gives me a headache.

We arrived at the docks on a sunny afternoon.

As we clambered off the ship, Uncle Guo gave a short wave toward the crew while I tumbled face flat onto the blessedly solid land. Uncle laughed and helped me back onto my feet.

"Welcome to Korea, Shalong!" He laughed.

I nodded and looked around. It was a bustling trade center, with merchants and fisherman selling their wares.

"Where are we going next?" I asked, following Uncle.

"At the very least, we're looking for a place to stay the night." He scanned the surrounds looking for an inn. Not seeing anything, he gestured for me to follow and started walking.

We walked for a bit, weaving between the crowds of shoppers and booths, the two of us arrived near the end of the street, where the hustle and bustle seemed to die down. There were still people around, but not at the same congestion that was near the ports. I looked up, and noticed that we weren't even in the city, but instead outside of it. The real city sat surrounded by a protective wall made out of smooth clay.

"We're not going _in_ are we?" I asked, "I don't know if we can get out if something happens."

"Yeah, but we're going to need to grab some fresh food before heading off anywhere else, and a proper bed once in a while never hurt anyone." He readjusted his bag, where the egg was stashed. "Let's go in, shall we?"

After waving to some guards who looked at us and let us in, we walked into the city gates. They seemed to be only checking the carts, so we didn't have to explain why we had a large red egg in our bag.

The city was massive. While there was a lot of hustle and bustle near the ports, nothing compared to the sensory overload that was the city. There were hawkers yelling at full throttle among the masses moving through the streets buying and bargaining for goods.

The two of us searched for some food stalls, with produce, meats, dried goods. Finding what we needed, Uncle spotted an inn for us to stay the night. The next morning, I woke up and knocked on Uncle's door.

"Uncle, wake up." No reply. "Uncle. Wake. Up." I bang on the door harder. "UNCLE."

The door creaks open to reveal my Uncle still rubbing sleep out of his eyes. "Yes?"

"We should be moving on."

"I was thinking we could stay here for a bit." He yawned, "It's quite a distance from Guangzhou, it would take them a while to even track us down. We can rest up and take a breather. Now go back to your room and sleep." With that he closed his door.

**Authors Note:**

**Sleep is for the weak. I am delirious. **


	4. Chapter 3

It was a quiet few days in the city. Uncle was tired keeping up his disguise, so he kept to his room, either sleeping or singing songs to his egg. I decided to explore the city, which was filled with so many different things, small shops, large marketplaces, and a beautiful central square.

For the next few days, I visited many different spots in the city. The city was often quite busy, but it was fascinating to see so many different people all in one city.

After the third day, when I came back to the inn from my wanderings outside, I joined Uncle in his room with the egg. As I recounted the day's discoveries -the fish market was selling pufferfish now, some elderly man found a box of bones when fishing, a peculiar salesman was visiting town that was selling some odds and ends- we heard some voices outside our window.

"Excuse me, madam, I was perhaps wondering if you have seen a large dragon-born around here recently?"

I peeked out the window, looking down to see a white dragonborn holding a large lance talking to the innkeeper. Uncle slowly backed away from the window and moved to the side.

She shook her head, "Sorry, haven't seen any dragonborns besides you."

He nodded, looked around and then left.

I looked down at Uncle, who had begun to pack.

"We leave in the morning." He said as he folded some shirts, "Do you think you can buy some food for the road?"

"Where are we headed now?" I asked, watching him grab the water flask.

"West. If we head East, it'll be only islands, easier for us to be cornered. I was hoping they wouldn't come up here, but it looks like we have to go."

"You want me to grab anything else?" I said as I headed for the door, my hood in hand.

"Nope, just get back quickly, we'll leave as soon as we can."

That night we made preparations to leave the next morning, and after a fitful night's sleep we woke up as early as we could without seeming too out of place. As soon as the sun arose, we left with some words of farther places to travel too.

We passed by some dragonborns on the way out, they gave us a glance before walking off. It wasn't until the city had vanished from our views that I started breathing normally. Walking as fast as we could, we put as much distance away from the city as possible.

**Authors Note:**

**Cities are hard. They give you writer's block. **


End file.
